HISTORY. 485 



Tartar cavalry, capable of maintaining the influence of the 

 Empire amongst the neighbouring countries, but unable , as 

 events have shewn, to withstand for an hour in the field the 

 skill, discipline, and valour of European soldiers. 

 KT The great countries of Indo- China, south-east of the Brah- 

 mapootra, comprehending the dominions termed Siam, Cam- 

 bodia, Malacca, and others, are, generally speaking, a re- 

 gion of thick forests, unfavourable to the rearing and mul- 

 tiplication of Horses. The inhabitants of these countries, 

 therefore, can never have been horsemen like the nations of 

 Western Asia, or the nomadic tribes of the interior. The 

 horses, accordingly, of this part of India, are few in number, 

 and little cared for by the inhabitants. Those, however, 

 which are known to us, as at the sea-ports, are of good form, 

 of the pony size, fiery, and tolerably fleet, though not pos- 

 sessed of great power of endurance. 



In the rich and beautiful islands which stretch from the 

 sea of Japan to Java, the Horses resemble those of the 

 neighbouring continent ; and most of the islands to the west- 

 ward, of 125 of longitude, appear to possess them. So far 

 as they have been observed, they are all of them small, and 

 even diminutive in size, but possessed of stout shoulders, 

 having good action, and manifesting no want of spirit, though 

 apparently incapable .of much endurance. Horses do not 

 seem to extend to the eastward beyond the island of Timor, 

 so that they are not found in the great and fertile island of 

 New Guinea. They did not exist in New Holland, although 

 now the finest races of the East have been carried to it, and 

 appear to find a habitat as suitable as any in the world. No 

 Horses existed in any of the Polynesian Islands at their dis- 

 covery, and none in America, although now multiplied in 

 every part of it where European arts have extended. 



To return to Thibet, the highest land of the Old Continent 

 in which the Domestic Horse is reared. To the north lies 

 the sandy desert of Kobi, in contact with other tracts of 

 boundless deserts, stretching nearly from east to west. Be- 



